Emigration to Oregon--Who should not come--Free advice and no
fees--English emigrants--Farmers--Haste to be rich--Quoted
experiences--Cost and ways of coming--Sea-routes--Railroads--
Baggage--What not to bring--What not to forget--Heavy property--
The Custom-house--San Francisco hotels--Conclusion. 293
Appendix. 305
TWO YEARS IN OREGON.
CHAPTER I.
Personal reasons for coming to Oregon--Plans of colonizing--Who
came--Who have returned--Who remain--Bowie-knives and revolvers--A
sheriff in danger--No tragedy--Our landing at Corvallis--Frail
houses--Pleasant welcome--The barber's shop--Its customers--Given
names--New acquaintances--Bright dresses--Religious denominations.
After visiting Oregon in the year 1877, and traveling with three or
four companions through its length and breadth, I ventured to publish
in England on my return a short account of our seeings and doings.
While the reception of this book by the reviews generally was only too
kind and flattering, one paper, the "Athenaeum," distinguished me by a
long notice, the whole point of which lay in the observation that it
would be interesting to know if I, who had been recommending Oregon to
others, were prepared to take my own prescription, and emigrate there
myself.
Now, although it would not perhaps be fair to make all physicians
swallow their own medicines, regardless whether or not they were sick,
and although I certainly was not in any position rendering emigration
necessary, or in the opinion of any of my friends and acquaintances
even desirable, yet I did not like it to be possible to be accused
rightly of recommending a course so serious as a change of
dwelling-place and even of nationality, without being willing to prove
by my own acts the genuineness of the advice I had given.
And this, among other motives and inducements, had a strong influence
in overcoming the crowd of hesitations and difficulties which spring up
when so great a change begins to be contemplated as possible.
And it is no more than natural that now, having had two years'
experience in Oregon, I should desire to have it known if it be
necessary to recall the general advice given in the former book,
advocating, as undoubtedly I then did advocate, Oregon as a desirable
residence.
But, as this involves my putting into some kind of literary shape our
experiences for the past two years in this far Western land, it is
better to begin by some general relation of our plans.
When I undertook to come out with my wife and children and see to the
settlement and disposal of the tract of land we had purchased, as one
result of my visit in 1877, I was applied to by a good many fathers to
take some superintendence of their sons, who desired to emigrate to
Oregon. Next, one or two married couples expressed a wish to join us.
Then several acquaintances, who were practical mechanics, had heard a
good report of Oregon, and desired to accompany us. And I was busy in
answering letters about the place and people to the very moment of
sailing.
I was not at all willing to have the company indefinitely numerous, not
having graduated in Mr. Cook's school for tourists, and knowing
something of the embarrassments likely to attend a crowd of travelers.
We found our party of twenty-six fully large enough for comfort. We
were kindly and liberally treated by the Allan Steamship Company, the
Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, and the Chicago and Northwestern
Railway; but our lines did not fall to us in pleasant places when we
experienced the tender mercies of the Union and Central Pacific. Our
party was broken up into different cars, and our strongest portmanteaus
were shattered by the most atrocious handling.
[Sidenote: _PLANS OF COLONIZING._]
It was a serious question if we should try to found an English colony
here, in the usual sense of the word. That would have involved a
separate life from the American residents; it would have fostered
jealousy here, and we should have committed numberless mistakes and
absurdities. We should have had to buy all our experience, amid the
covert ridicule of our neighbors. And I was confident that many members
of our party would have played at emigrating, and treated the whole
business as picnicking on a large scale. Moreover, I was not sure that,
even if we succeeded in transplanting English manners, customs, and
institutions, they would take hold in this new soil. The fact was
always before my eyes that the country was only thirty years old, in a
civilized sense, and I doubted the wisdom of trying to transport
thither a little piece of the old country.
I believed the wiser course to be to plant ourselves quietly among the
Oregonians with as little parade and fuss as possible, and to let our
own experience dictate to others whether to join us or not.
It has been our practice throughout to answer freely, and as fully as
possible, the many letters of inquiry as to place and people that we
have had, but to offer no advice; leaving those who were thinking of
coming out to take the responsibility on themselves of deciding to come
or to stay away.
Under this system our numbers have grown to upward of a hundred, and
now rarely a month passes without additions. Of course, a process of
natural selection goes on all the time. Not every one who comes
remains; but we have every reason to be satisfied with the
representatives of the mother-country who are making Oregon their
permanent home, and the same feeling is shared, as I am confident, by
the original residents.
Shall I try to describe what sort of people we live among here, a
hundred miles from Portland, the chief city in the State?
[Illustration: Corvallis, 1880.]
What the notions of some of our party were you will understand when I
mention that all I could say could not prevent the young men of the
party from arming themselves, as for a campaign in the hostile Indian
country, so that each man stepped ashore from the boat that brought us
up the Willamette with a revolver in each pocket, and the hugest and
most uncompromising knives that either London, New York, or San
Francisco could furnish.
[Sidenote: _OUR LANDING AT CORVALLIS._]
As ill luck would have it, just as we arrived, the sheriff had returned
to town with an escaped prisoner, and had been set upon by the brother,
and a pistol had been actually presented at him. I should say in a
whisper that the sheriff, worthy man, had proposed to return the
assault in kind, but had failed to get his six-shooter out in time from
the depths of a capacious pocket, where the deadly weapon lay in
harmless neighborhood, with a long piece of string, a handful or so of
seed-wheat, a large chunk of tobacco, a leather strap and buckle, and a
big red pocket-handkerchief. So I fancy he had not much idea of
shooting when he started out.
But the incident was enough to give a blood-color to all our first
letters home, and I dare say caused a good many shiverings and shudders
at the thought of the wild men of the woods we had come to neighbor
with.
The worst of it was, that it was the only approach to a tragedy, and
that we have had no adventures worth speaking of. "Story, God bless
you! I have none to tell, sir." Still we did know ourselves to be in a
new world when we stepped ashore from the large, white-painted,
three-storied structure on the water that they called a stern-wheel
river-boat, and in which we had spent two days coming up the great
river from Portland. It was the 17th of May, just a month from leaving
Liverpool, that we landed. The white houses of the little city of
Corvallis were nestled cozily in the bright spring green of the alders
and willows and oaks that fringed the river, and the morning sun
flashed on the metal cupola of the court-house, and lighted up the
deep-blue clear-cut mountains that rose on the right of us but a few
miles off.
When we got into the main street the long, low, broken line of
booth-like, wooden, one-storied stores and houses, all looking as if
one strong man could push them down, and one strong team carry them
off, grated a little, I could see, on the feelings of some of the
party. The redeeming feature was the trees, lining the street at long
intervals, darkening the houses a little, but clothing the town, and
giving it an air of age and respectability that was lacking in many of
the bare rows of shanties, dignified with the title of town, that we
had passed in coming here across the continent.
The New England Hotel invited us in. A pretty plane-tree in front
overshadowed the door; and a bright, cheery hostess stood in the
doorway to welcome us, shaking hands, and greeting our large party of
twenty-six in a fashion of freedom to which we had not been used, but
which sounded pleasantly in our travel-worn ears. The house was
tumble-down and shabby, and needed the new coat of paint it received
soon after--but in the corner of the sitting-room stood a good
parlor-organ. The dining-room adjoining had red cloths on the tables,
and gave a full view into the kitchen; but the "beefsteak, mutton-chop,
pork-chop, and hash" were good and well cooked, and contrasted with,
rather than reminded us of, the fare described by Charles Dickens as
offered him in the Eastern States when he visited America thirty-nine
years ago.
The bedrooms, opening all on to the long passage upstairs, with meager
furniture and patchwork quilts, the whole wooden house shaking as we
trotted from room to room, were not so interesting, and tempted no long
delay in bed after the early breakfast-gong had been sounded soon after
six. Breakfast at half-past six, dinner at noon, and supper at
half-past five, only set the clock of our lives a couple of hours
faster than we had been used to; and bed at nine was soon no novelty to
us.
The street in front was a wide sea of slushy mud when we arrived, with
an occasional planked crossing, needing a sober head and a good
conscience to navigate safely after dark; for, when evening had closed
in, the only street-lighting came from the open doors, and through the
filled and dressed windows of the stores.
[Sidenote: _THE BARBER'S SHOP._]
Saloons were forbidden by solemn agreement to all of us, but the
barber's shop was the very pleasant substitute. Two or three big
easy-chairs in a row, with a stool in front of each. Generally filled
they were by the grave and reverend seigniors of the city--each man
reposing calmly, draped in white, while he enjoyed the luxury, under
the skillful hands of the barber or his man, of a clean shave. At the
far end of the shop stood the round iron stove, with a circle of wooden
chairs and an old sofa. And here we enjoyed the parliament of free
talk. The circle was a frequently changing one, but the types were
constant.
The door opened and in came a man from the country: such a hat on his
head! a brim wide enough for an umbrella, the color a dirty white; a
scarlet, collarless flannel shirt, the only bit of positive color about
him; a coat and trousers of well-worn brown, canvas overall (or, as
sometimes spelled, "overhaul"), the trousers tucked into knee-high
boots, worn six months and never blacked. His hands were always in his
pockets, except when used to feed his mouth with the constant
"chaw."--"Hello, Tom," he says slowly, as he makes his way to the back,
by the stove. "Hello, Jerry," is the instant response. "How's your
health?" "Well; and how do you make it?" "So-so." "Any news out with
you?" "Wall, no; things pretty quiet." And he finds a seat and sinks
into it as if he intended growing there till next harvest.
We all know each other by our "given" names. I asked one of our
politicians how he prepared himself for a canvass in a county where I
knew he was a stranger this last summer. "Well, I just learned up all
the boys' given names, so I could call them when I met them," was the
answer. "I guess knowing 'em was as good as a hundred votes to me in
the end." It was a little startling at first to see a rough Oregonian
ride up to our house, dismount, hitch his horse to the paling, and
stroll casually in, with "Where's Herbert?" as his first and only
greeting. But we soon got used to it.
But the barber's shop was, and is, useful to us, as well as amusing.
The values and productiveness of farms for sale, the worth and
characters of horses, the prices of cattle, the best and most likely
and accessible places for fishing, and deer-shooting, and
duck-hunting--all such matters, and a hundred other things useful for
us to know, we picked up here, or "sitting around" the stoves in one or
other of the stores in the town.
Another good gained was, that thus our new neighbors and we got
acquainted: they found we were not all the "lords" they set us down for
at first, with the exclusiveness and pride they attributed to that
maligned race in advance; while we on our side found a vast amount of
self-respect, of native and acquired shrewdness, of legitimate pride in
country, State, and county, and a fund of kindly wishes to see us
prosper, among our roughly dressed but really courteous neighbors.
There was a good deal of feminine curiosity displayed on either side,
by the natives and the new-comers. When we went to church the first
Sunday after our arrival, there were a good many curious worshipers,
more intent on the hats and bonnets of the strangers than on the
service in which we united. We heard afterward how disappointed they
were that the stranger ladies were so quietly and cheaply dressed. We
could not say the same when callers came, which they speedily did after
we were settled in our new home--such tight kid gloves, and bright
bonnets, and silk mantles! It was a constant wonder to our women-folk
how their friends managed to show as such gay butterflies, two thousand
miles on the western side of everywhere.
[Sidenote: _RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS._]
We found here, in a little town of eleven hundred inhabitants, all
kinds of religious denominations represented--Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Methodists North, and Methodists South,
Evangelicals, and Baptists--but very little rivalry and no rancor. I
shall have something more to say about the religious life later on, but
I think I will reserve the description of our home, and of those of
some of our neighbors, for a fresh chapter.
CHAPTER II.
Where we live--Snow-peaks and distant prospects--Forest-fires--The
Coast Mountains and Mary's Peak--Sunset in Oregon--Farmhouses: the
log-cabin, the box-house, the frame-house--Dinner at the farm--Slay
and eat--A rash chicken--Bread-making by amateurs--Thrift and
unthrift--Butter and cheese--Products of the "range," farm, and
garden--Wheat-growing.
You might look the world over for a prettier spot than that on which
this house stands. Just a mile from Corvallis, on a gently rounded
knoll, we look eastward across the town, and the river, and the broad
valley beyond, to the Cascade Mountains.
Their lowest range is about thirty miles off, and the rich flat valley
between is hidden by the thick line of timber, generally fir, that
fringes the farther side of the Willamette. Against the dark line of
timber the spires of the churches and the cupola of the court-house
stand out clear, and the gray and red shingled roofs of the houses in
the town catch early rays of the rising sun.
The first to be lighted up are the great snow-peaks, ninety, seventy,
and fifty miles off--a ghostly, pearly gray in the dim morning, while
the lower ranges lie in shadow; but, as the sun rises in the heavens,
these same lower ranges grow distinct in their broken outlines. The air
is so clear that you see plainly the colors of the bare red rocks, and
the heavy dark, fir-timber clothing their rugged sides. Ere the sun
mounts high the valley often lies covered with a low-lying thin white
mist, beyond and over which the mountains stand out clear.
For some weeks in the late summer heavy smoke-clouds from the many
forest and clearing fires obscure all distant view. This last summer
fires burned for at least fifty miles in length at close intervals of
distance, and the dark gray pall overlay the mountains throughout.
Behind the house, and in easy view from the windows on either side, are
the Coast Mountains, or rather hills.
Mary's Peak rises over four thousand feet, and is snow-crowned for nine
months in the year. The outlines of this range are far more gently
rounded than the Cascades, and timber-covered to the top. Save for the
solid line of the heavy timber, the outlines of the Coast Range
constantly remind us of our own Dartmoor; and the illusion is
strengthened by the dark-red soil where the plow has invaded the hills,
yearly stealing nearer to their crowns. Mary's Peak itself is bare at
the top for about a thousand acres, but the firs clothe its sides, and
the air is so clear that, in spite of the seventeen miles' distance,
their serrated shapes are plainly and individually visible as the sun
sinks to rest behind the mountain.
[Sidenote: _SUNSET IN OREGON._]
Such sunsets as we have! Last night I was a mile or two on the other
side of the river as night fell. Mount Hood was the first to blush, and
then Mount Jefferson and the Three Sisters in turn grew rosy red. From
the valley I could not see the lower Cascades, but these snowy pyramids
towered high into the sky. One little fleecy cloud here and there
overhead caught the tinge, but the whole air on the eastern side was
luminously pink. Turning westward, the pale-blue sky faded through the
rainbow-green into the rich orange surrounding the departing sun; and
the westward mountains stood solidly and clearly blue in massive lines.
One great peculiarity of the Oregon landscape, as distinguished from an
English rather than a New England scene, is in the number of white
farmhouses that catch the eye. We see many from our windows. I suppose
it is that the roads are so bad in winter that the farmers must live on
the farms, instead of in the English-village fashion. So it is that you
may travel by railroad up and down this valley for two hundred miles
between farmhouses every quarter or half mile all the way. Nearly every
farmhouse has its orchard close by; but one big barn is all the
out-buildings they boast, and farm-yard, in the English sense, one
never sees.
Our own house is not a fair specimen, because of our large family and
its corresponding habitation; but the regular farmhouse is by no means
an uncomfortable abode.
There are three kinds: log-cabin, box-house, frame-house.
[Sidenote: _FARMHOUSES._]
The first, by far the most picturesque type, is fast becoming obsolete,
and on most of the good farms, if not pulled down, is degraded into
woodhouse or piggery. But to my eye there is something rarely
comfortable in the low, solid, rugged walls of gray logs, with
overhanging shingled roof; the open hearth, too, with its great
smoldering back-log and wide chimney, invites you to sit down before it
and rest. By the side of the fireplace, from two deers' horns fastened
to the wall, hangs the owner's rifle--generally an old brown
veteran--with bullet-pouch and powder-horn. Over the high mantel-shelf
stands the ticking clock, suggesting "Sam Slick, the clock-maker."
Curtained off from the main room, with its earthen or roughly-boarded
floor, are the low bedsteads of the family, each covered with its
patchwork quilt. A corner cupboard or two hold the family stock of cups
and plates, and the smell of apples, from the adjoining apple-chamber,
pervades the house.
Round the house is the home-field, generally the orchard, sown with
timothy-grass, where range four or five young calves, and a sow or two,
with their hungry, rooting youngsters. The barn, log-built also, stands
near by, with two or three colts, or yearling cattle, grouped around.
The spring of cold, clear water runs freely through the orchard, but
ten yards from the house-door, hastening to the "creek," whose murmur
is never absent, save in the few driest weeks of summertime.
Snake-fences, seven logs high, with top-rail and crossed binders to
keep all steady, divide the farm from the road, and a litter of chips
from the axe-hewed pile of firewood strew the ground between wood-pile
and house. Here and there, even in the home-field, and nearly always in
the more distant land, a big black stump disfigures the surface, and
betrays the poverty or possibly the carelessness of the owner, who has
carved his homestead from the brush.
But as the farmer prospers, be it ever so little, he hastens to pull
down his log-cabin and to build his "box" or more expensive "frame"
house. In each case the material is "lumber." By this is signified, be
it known to the uninitiated, fir boards, one foot wide, sixteen feet
long, and one inch thick.
The "box" house is built of boards set upright, and the cracks covered
with strips of similar board, three inches wide.
The "frame" house is double throughout, the boards run lengthwise, and
there is a covering outside of an outer skin of planking.
With the box or frame house comes the inevitable stove. The cooking and
eating of the family go on in a lean-to room, and the living-room is
furnished with some pretensions, always with a sewing-machine, and
often with a parlor-organ or piano. Muslin curtains drape the windows;
a bureau is generally present, and chromos, or very rough engravings,
hang on the walls. The political tendencies of the owner betray
themselves. General Grant, with tight-buttoned coat and close-cut
beard, or President Lincoln and his family, show the Republican.
Strangely enough, General Lee, with a genial smile on his attractive
face, is affected by the Democrats. The followers of the greenback
heresy delight in Brick Pomeroy, with clean-shaven, smug, and satisfied
look.
[Sidenote: _DINNER AT THE FARM._]
It is not the fashion to carry provisions with you on journeys in
Oregon. When meal-time draws near, and hotels are many miles away, you
ride boldly up to the nearest farm, dismount, throw your horse's rein
over the paling, and walk in. The lady of the house appears, from the
cooking department at the rear, and you say: "Good-morning, madam; can
I get dinner with you?" Unless there is grave reason to the contrary,
she considers a moment, and then answers, "I guess so," with a
hospitable smile. The next question is as to your horse, which one of
the children leads into the barn, and then fills out a goodly measure
of oats, and crams the rack with hay from the pile filling the middle
of the barn. While your hostess adds a little to the family meal, you
turn over the newspapers in the sitting-room, generally finding a
"Detroit Free Press," or a "Toledo Blade," or a New York "World" or
"Tribune," or a San Francisco "Bulletin" or "Chronicle," besides the
local weekly. If you want books, you must take to the "Pacific Coast
Reader," the last school-book, which you are sure to find on the shelf;
unless you chance on a "Universal History," or the "History of the
Civil War," or the "Life of General Jackson," or the "Life of General
Custer," or a collection of poetry in an expensive binding, all of
which signify that the book-peddler has been paying a recent visit.
Then your hostess returns, saying, "Will you come and eat?" If you go
into the back room--where, generally, the master of the house and you,
the visitor, and perhaps a grown-up son, or a farming hand, sit down
and dine, while the mistress and her daughter serve--you will not
starve.
In front of you is a smoking dish of meat, either pork or mutton,
salted, cut into square bits and fried; rarely beef, more often
venison, or deer-meat, as it is called here. By it is piled up a dish
of mashed potatoes, and a tureen of white, thick sauce. A glass dish of
stewed apples, or apple-sauce, and one of preserved pears or peaches,
and a smaller dish of blackberry or plum jam, complete the meal, with
the constant coffee, and generally a big jug of milk. The bread is
brought you in sets of hot, square rolls, fresh from the stove. It is
not always that you can get cold bread, and a look of surprise always
follows the request for it.
Generally, a good supply of white beans, boiled soft, and with a slice
or two of bacon, is an important item. Apples, and the best of them,
too, you can have for the asking--too common to be offered to you.
This _regime_ applies to breakfast, dinner, and supper, with but
slight variations. I forgot, though, the saucer of green, sharp,
vinegary gherkins, which the Oregonians seem not to know how to do
without, and also the honey, and trout, which are the frequent and
welcome additions to the meal among the hills.
My wife and I dropped in once to a dinner of this kind. We were
sitting, cooling ourselves on the veranda, watching some pretty, black
Spanish chickens scratching among the scanty rose-bushes in front. The
farmer's wife came quickly out and addressed me: "Have you got your
revolver?" I stared for a moment, thinking of tramps, and bears, and I
know not what. "I never carry one on horseback," I answered. "Oh," said
she, "I would have had you shoot the head off one of them chickens, for
I've got no fresh meat." Inwardly I congratulated ourselves that our
dinner did not altogether depend on my skill with that common, but, to
my mind, very unsatisfactory weapon.
One of my friends bought out an Oregonian farmer, and paid him for
stock and lot, including some fine fowls. Dropping in to dinner two
days afterward, he found a smoking chicken on the board. I suppose he
eyed it askance, for the farmer observed: "That's one of your chickens
I killed by accident. I saw some wild-geese feeding on the wheat, and
fetched the rifle, and that there foolish rooster got right in the way
of the bullet."
[Sidenote: _BREAD-MAKING BY AMATEURS._]
If any friends of yours think of coming out, send them to the school of
cookery, I implore you. It is the greatest possible quandary to be in,
to be set down with flour, water, and a tin of saleratus or
baking-powder, and to have to make the bread or go without. Then, to
convert chickens running about your house into food for man is not so
easy as it looks; nor is cooking beans or potatoes a matter of pure
instinct, I assure you. Shall I ever forget riding up at nearly three
in the afternoon, to one of our Englishmen's farms, to find the
proprietor standing, coat off and sleeves turned up, before a huge,
round tin of white slush? When he saw me come in, he lifted out his
hands and rubbed off the white dripping mess, saying: "I'll be hanged
if I'll try any longer; since eleven o'clock have I been after this
beastly bread! Can you make it? Is this stuff too thin or too thick, or
what?" It is true that he makes fine bread now; but if you could but
know the stages of slackness, heaviness, soddenness, flintiness, that
he and his friends passed through, you would see that I was giving a
useful hint, and one that applies to the feminine emigrant quite as
much as to the masculine. Another thing strikes us out here, namely,
the waste that pervades an average Oregon farmer's household. Does he
kill a deer? He leaves the fore half of the creature, and all the
internals, in the wood where he killed it, taking home only the
hind-quarters and the hide. If he kills a hog, the head is thrown out,
to be rolled round and gnawed at by the dogs; the same with a sheep or
a calf.
Half of them will not even take the trouble to have butter, letting the
calves get all the milk, but just a little for the meals. You rarely
see eggs on the table, though there may be scores of hens about.
You will hardly believe that large quantities of butter and cheese are
imported into this valley, both from California and from Washington
Territory, and cheese even from the East, though there can not be a
finer dairy country than this, if they would but look a little ahead
and provide some green food for the cows for the interval between the
hay-crop off the timothy-grass and the fresh growth of the same from
the autumn rains.
It is still more inexcusable among the hills, where the grass keeps
green all the year round. The exclusive devotion to wheat is what will
very shortly and most surely impoverish the country; and therefore it
is that, in the interests of Oregon, I am so anxious that many farmers
should come here who are familiar with mixed farming, and will apply it
to our deep, rich, stoneless soil, and will thus avert the inevitable
consequences of wheat, wheat, wheat, continuously for fifteen, twenty,
ay, and thirty years.
It is not that other crops and other pursuits do not answer here.
Sheep, cattle, and horses thrive and multiply. Oregon valley wool ranks
among the very best. The Angora goat takes to Western Oregon as if it
were his native home, and produces yearly from three to four pounds of
hair, worth from sixty to eighty cents a pound. Beans, peas, carrots,
parsnips grow as I have never seen them elsewhere. Swedish turnips have
succeeded well in this valley, and nearer the coast the white turnips I
have seen nearly as big as your head, and good all through. I saw a
large heap of potatoes the other day that averaged six inches long, and
perfectly clean and free from all taint. Carrots we grew ourselves that
weighed from one and a half to two pounds all round. Barley thrives
splendidly, with a full, round, clear-skinned berry. Oats I need hardly
mention, as the export of this cereal is very large, and the quality is
undeniable.
The common red clover grows in a half-acre patch in my neighbor's field
waist-high, and he cut it three times last year. We have the humble-bee
(or, at any rate, a big fellow just like the English humble-bee--for I
never handled one to examine it closely) to fertilize the clover. The
white Dutch clover spreads wherever it gets a chance.
[Sidenote: _WHEAT-GROWING._]
But the temptation to grow wheat is very strong. It is the staple
product of the State, and hardly ever fails in quality. The farmers
understand it; their system of life is organized with a view to it. A
thousand bushels of wheat in the warehouse is as good as money in the
bank, and is in reality a substitute for it. There is a clear
understanding of what it costs to plant, harvest, and warehouse, and it
involves the lowest amount of trouble and anxiety.
Therefore, Oregon grows wheat, and will grow it; and men will grow
nothing else until the consequences are brought home to them.
CHAPTER III.
The land-office; its object and functionaries--How to find your
land--Section 33--The great conflagration--The survivors of the
fire--The burnt timber and the brush--The clearing-party--Chopping by
beginners--Cooking, amateur and professional--The wild-cat--Deer
and hunting--Piling brush--Dear and cheap clearing--The skillful
axeman--Clearing by Chinamen--Dragging out stumps--What profits the
farmer may expect on a valley farm--On a foot-hills farm.
By the time we had been here about a month and had settled down a
little, we set about clearing a tract of wild land called section 33,
situated nearly twenty miles away. You will ask, What does section 33
mean? Oregon is divided into several districts. For the Willamette
Valley the land-office is at Oregon City, one of the most ancient towns
in the State, having a history of forty years, dating from the rule of
the Hudson's Bay Company. The chief officer is called the "register."
He is supplied with maps of the surveys from the central office at
Washington. Each map is of one township, consisting of a square block
of thirty-six sections of a square mile or six hundred and forty acres
each. Each township is numbered with reference to a baseline and a
meridian, fixed by the original survey of the State, thus giving a
position of latitude and longitude. From the land-office duplicates of
the maps for each county are furnished to the county-seat and are
deposited in the county clerk's office for general inspection. Each
year a certain sum is set aside for new surveys, and contracts are
given by the Surveyor-General of the State to local surveyors for the
work.
The corners of each square-mile section are denoted by posts or large
stones, and the neighboring trees are blazed or marked so as to direct
attention to the corner post or stone.
Thus for years after the surveying-party have passed through wild land,
there is but little difficulty in finding the corner-posts, and thence
by compass ascertaining the boundary-lines of any section or fraction
of a section in question. Surveys being officially made, boundary
disputes are avoided, or easily solved and set at rest by reference to
the county surveyor, who for a few dollars' fee comes out and "runs the
lines" afresh of any particular plot.
Section 33, then, is the section thus numbered in township 10, south of
range 7, west of the Willamette meridian. It lay just on the edge of
the burned woods country.
[Sidenote: _THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION._]
Although forest-fires in Oregon are still of yearly occurrence, since
settlement by the white men the range of the devastation has been by
degrees narrowed and confined. Formerly the Indians started fires every
year to burn the withered grass in the valleys and on the hillsides,
and thence fire spread into the woods and ravaged many miles of timber.
The "great fire" is said to have occurred about forty years ago, when
many Indians perished in the flames, and others had to take refuge in
the streams and rivers, till the destroying element had passed them in
its resistless fury.
Standing on the top of one of these Coast Mountains, the eye ranges for
many miles over hill and dale, dotted everywhere with the huge black
trunks, the relics of the great conflagration. Many standing yet, some
towering high into the sky, testify of their former gracefulness by the
symmetrical tapering of the tall trunk, and the regular positions of
the broken limbs and branches. But Nature is busily at work repairing
damages; each winter's rains penetrate more deeply into the fabric of
the trunk; each winter's gales loosen yet more the roots in which the
living sap was long ago destroyed; each spring the wind brings down
additions to the graveyard of trees, rotting away into mold; while a
few young successors to the former race of firs are showing themselves
clothed in living green, and a dense growth of copse-wood, hazel,
cherry, vine-maple, arrow-wood, and crab-apple is crowding the hollows
of the canyons on the hill-sides.
The brake-fern covers the hills, attaining a growth of five, six, or
eight feet, and sheltering an undergrowth of wild-pea and native grass.
Section 33 lies between the burned timber and the living forest, but
its chief value is in the valley of some three hundred acres of
alluvial land forming its center, through which winds here and there
the Mary River, at this distance from its mouth scarcely more than a
clear and rapid brook.
Eight of us started on the clearing-party with two light wagons, and a
good supply of food, blankets, and axes and saws. A squatter had
settled on one corner and built himself a hut and a little barn, and
had got four or five acres of land cleared and plowed. But he had
abandoned his improvements and gone some ten miles off, to clear
another homestead among the thick woods.
The first night we camped out in a grassy corner by the wood-side,
while the horses were tethered near.
[Sidenote: _CHOPPING BY BEGINNERS._]
The next day we began. Two or three of us had some little knowledge of
the virtue of an axe, but the rest were new to the art. It was amusing
to watch their eager efforts to hit straight and firm. One or two of
our Oregonian neighbors came and looked on with rather scoffing faces,
but advised us how to lay the brush we cut in windrows, with a view to
the future burning.
We cut young firs, up to a foot thick, cherry poles from fifteen to
thirty feet high, vine-maple as thick as the cherry but only half as
tall, and here and there a tough piece of crab-apple. The brush was so
thick that what was cut could only fall one way, so that the patch each
man had cut by dinner-time was ridiculously small. Of course, the whole
valley was not brush-covered--very far from it; there were great open
spaces of clear grass, with here and there a tuft of blue lupin and
rose-bushes. The firs once cut off were done with, and the stump would
rot out of the ground in a year or two. The cherry-brush was no bad
enemy, either; the young shoots would sprout from the root next year,
but sheep would bite them off and kill the cherry out in a couple of
seasons. But by all accounts the vine-maple was as tough in life as in
texture, and that it was tough in texture our poor arms testified when
night came.
For a few days we tried to be our own cooks, one of the party in turn
being detailed for the purpose; but much good victuals was spoiled. So
I sent into town for a Chinaman cook. That too much Chinaman is bad, I
am prepared to support my neighbors in believing; but enough Chinaman
to have one at call whenever you think fit to send for him is a comfort
indeed. So Jem, as he called himself, came out to us. He wore a smile
all day long on his broad face; and he was caught reading earnestly in
a poetry-book he must have found left out of one of our bags; so I
conclude he was a learned Chinaman. But he had strange fancies for his
own eating. He cooked a wild-cat that was shot, and we laughed; but he
proceeded next to skin and eat a skunk that had fallen a victim to its
curiosity to see how white men lived, and had trespassed inside the
hut; and that was too much. We tasted, or thought we tasted, skunk in
the bread for a day or two, so we sent Jem back.
Turn out at five, breakfast over by soon after six, work till noon;
then from one till six; then supper, and camp-fire, and pipes and talk
till nine, and then to bed. Such was our regular life, certainly a
healthy and not an unpleasant one.
[Sidenote: _DEER AND HUNTING._]
We had an excitement one night. The hut stood at the corner of the
clearing, with a couple of good-sized firs in front of the door. A
wood-covered hill came close to it on the right and rear. We were going
to bed, when there was a howl outside, followed by a chorus from our
three hounds. Out rushed a couple of us into the starlight with rifles
in hand. The dogs had sent whatever creature it was up into one of the
fir-trees and bayed fiercely round. Nothing could be seen among the
thick branches. One of the party, an enthusiast, though a novice in
woodland sport, got right close to the tree-trunk and managed to make
out a form against the sky some twenty feet above his head. At once he
fired, and down came the creature almost on his head; fortunately for
him, the hounds attacked it at once, and a royal fight and scrimmage
went on in the dark. Presently the intruder fought its way through the
dogs to the rail-fence, but mounting it showed for an instant against
the sky, and a second rifle-shot brought it down. Dragged to the light,
some called it a catamount, but others more correctly a wild-cat
(_Lynx fasciatus_). A right handsome beast it was, with short tail, and
tufted ears, and spotted skin. It was and remains the only one that has
been seen. It was attracted, no doubt, by some mutton we had hung up in
the fir to be out of the way of the dogs. Fortunate, indeed, was our
friend to escape its claws and teeth, as it has the reputation of being
the fiercest and hardest to kill of all the cats found in Oregon.
The woods in front of the hut across the valley were a sure find for
deer, and we could kill one almost any day by planting a gun or two at
points in the valley which the deer would make for, and then turning
the hounds into the woods above. It is a poor kind of hunting at the
best, this hiding behind a bush and watching, it may be for hours, for
the deer. You hear the cry of the hound far away, gradually growing
nearer, and presently the deer breaks cover, and either swims or runs
and wades down the river toward your stand; occupied solely with the
trailing hound, and ignorant of the ambushed danger in front, the shot
is generally a sure and easy one at a few paces' distance, often within
buck-shot range from an ordinary gun.
[Sidenote: _THE SKILLFUL AXEMAN._]
Before the summer had passed, enough brush had been cut to clear some
fifty acres of the valley, and we left the cut stuff piled in long rows
to dry till next summer, that the burning might be a complete one when
we did put fire to it. The fires would need tending for a day or two,
and feeding with the butt-ends of the long poles, to finish the work;
grass-seed sown on the ashes with the first autumn rains would speedily
make excellent pasture in that deep and fertile soil. The fencing of
the cleared acreage, and the plowing up and sowing with oats and wheat
of some eight or ten acres of land from which the roots and stumps had
been carefully grubbed out, would complete a "ranch," according to the
Oregon fashion, and section 33 would lose that name and assume that of
its first owner. The transformation from wild land to tame would be
complete, and my work in connection with it would be done. So much for
one way, and that the simplest, of making a home in Oregon. Longer
experience taught us cheaper methods. For the large clearing-party with
its attendant expense and need of oversight may be substituted clearing
by contract; when some one or two of the poorer and more industrious
homesteaders will contract to cut and clear at so much the acre or the
piece, boarding themselves, and taking their own time and methods of
doing the work. Some of the Indians are masters of the axe, and will
both make a clearing bargain and stick to it, provided you are careful
to keep always a good percentage of their pay in hand till the work is
finished: fail to do this, and some rainy day you will find no ringing
of the axe amid the trees, and their rough camp will be deserted, its
inhabitants gone for good. I like to watch a skillful axeman. Set him
to one of the big black trunks, six feet through. Watch how he strolls
round it, axe on shoulder, determining which way it shall fall. He
fetches or cuts out a plank, six or eight inches wide, and four feet
long, and you wonder what he will do with it. A few quick blows of his
keen weapon, and a deep notch is cut into the tree four feet from the
ground; the plank is driven into it, and he climbs lightly on it.
Standing there, another notch is cut four feet still higher from the
ground, and a second plank inserted. Then watch him. Standing there on
the elastic plank, which seems to give more life and vigor to his
blows, it springs to the swing of the axe and the chips fly fast. As
you look, he seems to be inspired with eager hurry, and the chips fly
in a constant shower. Soon a deep, wedge-like cut is seen eating its
way into the heart of the trunk. In an hour or so he has finished on
that side, and leaves it. Taking the opposite side of the tree, he is
at it again, and a big wound speedily appears. Long before the heart is
reached, a loud cracking and rending is heard. The axeman redoubles his
efforts. The tree shakes and quivers through all its mass, and then the
top moves, slowly at first, then faster, and down it comes, with a
crash that wakes the echoes in the hills for miles and shakes the
ground. Then send him into the thick brush, where the stems are so
crowded that they have shot high up into the sky. Two cuts on one side,
and one on the other, an inch or two from the earth, and he drops his
axe, and leans all his weight against the stem. It cracks and snaps; he
shakes it, and gently it sways, bending its elastic top till it touches
the ground before the stem has left its hold on Mother Earth. Before it
has had time to fall its neighbor is attacked, and a broad strip of
sunlight is soon let into the wood. Hard work? Of course it is: a day's
chopping will earn you sore wrists and aching arms, but a fine appetite
and the soundest of sleep. Unless a new-comer has had experience in the
art and practice of wood-cutting, he will find it too slow work to
undertake with his own hands the clearing of wild land to make his
homestead. Let him buy a place where some of the rough early work has
been already done, and there are plenty to be had, and by all means let
him by degrees, and as time serves, enlarge his clearing and extend his
fields. Or, let him contract for the clearing at so much the acre. Some
of the very best wheat-land in this valley is covered with oak-grubs
which have sprung up within the last twenty years to a height of from
ten to twenty feet. Chinamen are generally used to clear this land,
being engaged at the rate of from eighty to ninety cents a day; that
is, from three shillings fourpence to three shillings tenpence English.
They want looking after closely to get full value from their work. They
come in gangs of any size wanted, and have to be provided with a rough
hut to sleep in; they furnish their own food and cooking. The oak-wood
is not only cut, but the roots are grubbed out, and the land left ready
for the plow. The wood is cut into four-feet lengths and stacked ready
for carting away. It is worth almost anywhere in the valley not less
than three dollars a cord; that is, a pile eight feet long, four feet
wide, and four feet high. Thus the farmer who has a little capital and
so can afford the first outlay, need not hesitate to clear this
oak-grub land, as the value of the cord-wood and the first year's crop
should more than defray the expense of the grubbing.
In England it is usual to bring into farming course gradually woodland
that has been cleared, sowing oats first. Here, on the contrary, the
farmer may expect a good wheat crop from his cleared woodland the first
year.
Yet another method of clearing is very effective and economical,
especially at a distance from the haunts of Chinamen. A strong wooden
windlass is made and fitted with a long lever for one horse. The
windlass is anchored down near the oak-grub or cherry-brush to be got
rid of. A strong iron chain is caught round the bush and attached to
the windlass. The horse marches round and round, and winds up the
windlass-rope; the roots soon crack and tear. The farmer stands by, axe
in hand, and one or two strokes sever the toughest roots, and the bush
is torn up by main force, root and branch. One man and a horse can thus
do the work of six men, and do it effectually too.
[Sidenote: _PROFITS ON A VALLEY FARM._]
Before we turn to other subjects let me give some idea of what a newly
arrived farmer may expect to get, if he settles on a valley farm.
Suppose the farm to consist of 400 acres, of which 150 acres are plowed
land, the remainder being rough pasture, and 30 acres brush. Of the 150
acres, 90 acres would be in wheat and 60 in oats and timothy-grass. The
wheat-land would produce 26 bushels to the acre, or 2,340 bushels in
all. The value may be taken to be 90 cents the bushel, on an average of
years, or $2,106 in all. The farmer would have a flock of 250 sheep,
the produce from which in wool and lambs would not be less than $300 a
year. He would breed and sell two colts a year, yielding him certainly
$125, probably half as much more. He would have ten tons of timothy-hay
to sell, producing $75. He should fat not less than a dozen hogs, worth
$10 each, or $120. We will say nothing of milk, butter, eggs, fruit,
and garden produce; but, from the sources of profit we have enumerated,
you will find the return to be $2,726.
The necessary expenses would be the wages of one hired hand, say $300 a
year; harvesting, $150, and other expenses, such as repairs to
implements, horse-shoeing, and wheat-bags for the grain, $276, leaving
a net return of $2,000. Supposing that the cost of the farm was $25 an
acre, or $10,000 in all, I think the return is a pretty good one on
such a figure, even if another $1,000 or $1,500 has to be added for
implements, farm-horses, and sheep, to start with.
The figures I have given are from the actual working of a thoroughly
reliable man, but relate to a year slightly above the general average
of profit. You will see a large possibility of improvement in bringing
more of the unbroken land into cultivation, either in grain or in tame
grasses, and better sheep and cattle feed. So much for a valley farm at
present prices. Naturally, the figures will alter as time goes on, as I
do not imagine that the present prices of land will continue
stationary, in the face of new railroads, improved communications, and
growing population.
Let us look at the opportunities of an emigrant with less capital and
greater willingness to dispense with some of the valley advantages.
[Sidenote: _PROFITS ON A FOOT-HILLS FARM._]
His 400 acres would probably give him only 50 acres of farming, cleared
land; but adjoining, or at any rate near by, he would find land
belonging still to the Government, or untilled and unfenced, for his
cattle to range over. He would have, say, 20 acres of wheat, giving him
500 bushels, and 30 acres of oats and timothy-hay, yielding 600 bushels
of oats, of which 200 would be for sale, and the rest for use and seed,
and 30 tons of hay. He would have, say, 40 cattle, of which 15 would
come into market each year. The average value of these would be $18, or
$270 in all. Add 20 hogs at $10, or $200 in all. He must also raise and
sell three colts a year, giving him $150. Looking to smaller items of
profit, the farmer's wife should have ten pounds of butter a week to
sell, at any rate, through the summer months, which at 20 cents a pound
would give her $2 a week for 25 weeks, or $50 in all. Eggs should yield
also not less than $40 in the year. This all totals to $1,240, against
an original outlay of $10 an acre, or $4,000 in all for the farm, and
$1,500 for implements and stock.
If the farmer is a sportsman, he may add a good many deer in the course
of the year to the family larder, and also pheasants and partridges and
quail, from August to November. I use the local names, the ruffed
grouse and the common grouse being in question.
CHAPTER IV.
A spring ride in Oregon--The start--The equipment--Horses and
saddlery--Packs--The roadside--Bird fellow-travelers--Snakes--The
nearest farm--Bees--The great pasture--The poisonous larkspur--
Market-gardening--The Cardwell Hill--The hill-top--The water-shed--Mary
River--Crain's--The Yaquina Valley--Brush, grass, and fern--The young
Englishmen's new home--A rustic bridge--"Chuck-holes"--The road
supervisor--Trapp's--The mill-dam--Salmon-pass law--Minnows and
crawfish--The Pacific at rest--Yaquina--Newport.
Some months ago I noticed an observation in the "Spectator," in a
critique of a book of the Duke of Argyll's on Canadian homes, to the
effect that what was wanted was such a description of roadside, farm,
and woodland as should cause far-away readers to see them in their
ordinary, every-day guise.
I have often felt the same need in books of travels, when I little
thought it would ever fall to my lot to try to bring a land thousands
of miles away before untraveled eyes.
So, take a ride with me, in May, from our town to Yaquina Bay, just
sixty-six miles off.
I have already said enough of the valley lying here, in the early
morning, calm and quiet, with the light mist tracing out the course of
the great river for miles into the soft distance, and the Cascade Range
standing out clear above. But we turn our backs on the town and face
toward the west.
[Sidenote: _HORSES AND SADDLERY._]
One word on mount and equipment. The horse is a light chestnut--sorrel
we call it here--about fifteen hands high, compact and active, with
flowing mane and tail. He cost a hundred dollars six months back; in
England, for a park hack, he would be worth three fourths as many
pounds. He has four paces--a walk of about four miles an hour, a
jog-trot of five, a lope or canter of six or seven, and a regular
gallop. He passes from one pace to another by a mere pressure of the
leg against his sides, and the gentlest movement of the reins. To turn
him, be it ever so short, carry the bridle-hand toward the side you
want to go, but put away all notion of pulling one rein or the other.
He will walk unconcernedly through the deepest mud or the quickest
flowing brook, and climb a steep hill with hardly quickened breath; if
he meets a big log in the trail, he will just lift his fore-legs over
it and follow with his hind-legs without touching it, and hardly moving
you in the saddle. And he will carry a twelve-stone man, with a saddle
weighing nearly twenty pounds, and a pack of fifteen pounds behind the
saddle, from eight in the morning till six in the evening, with an
hour's rest in the middle of the day, and be ready to do it again
to-morrow, and the next day, and the day after that.
The saddle is in the Mexican shape, with a high pommel in front, handy
for a rope or gun-sling, and a high cantle behind; it has a deep,
smooth seat, and a leather flap behind and attached to the cantle on
which the pack rests; huge wooden stirrups, broad enough to give full
support to the foot, and wide enough for the foot to slip easily in and
out. A horse-hair belt, six inches wide, with an iron ring at each end,
through which runs a buckskin strap to attach it to the saddle, and by
which it is drawn tight, forms a "sinch," the substitute for girths.
The word "sinch" is a good one, and has passed into slang. If your
enemy has injured you and you propose to return the compliment in the
reverse of Christian fashion, "I'll sinch him," say you. If a poor
player has won the first trick by accident, "I guess he'll get sinched
soon," says the looker-on.
I advise no Englishman to bring saddlery to Oregon. He will save no
money by doing so, and will not be fitted out so well for the
hours-long rides he will have. I have only heard one Englishman out of
fifty say that he prefers the English saddle, after getting used to the
Mexican, and he had brought one out with him and used it out of pride.
Behind the saddle is the pack. Just a clean flannel shirt and a pair of
socks, a hair-brush, a comb and tooth-brush, fit us out for a week or
two; baggage becomes truly "impedimenta" when you have to carry it on
your horse. You need not carry blankets now, for there are good
stopping-houses at fit distances apart. But you may, if you wish, bring
your Martini carbine, or Winchester rifle, for we may meet a deer by
the way. So we start.
The first mile or two is along the open road. A brown, rather dusty
track in the center, beaten hard by the travel; on either side a broad
band of short grass; and snake-fences, built of logs ten feet long,
piled seven high, and interlaced at the ends. In the angles of nearly
every panel of the fence grows a rose-bush, now covered with young
buds, just showing crimson tips. As we canter by, a meadow-lark gives
us a stave of half-finished song from the top of the fence, and flits
off to pitch some fifty yards away, in the young green wheat, and try
again at his song. The bird is nearly as large as an English thrush,
with speckled breast, and a bright-yellow patch under the tail. Just in
front of us, on the fence, sits a little hawk, so tame that he moves
not till we pass him, and then by turns follows and precedes us along
the road, settling again and again upon the tallest rails. He is gayly
dressed indeed, with a russet-brown back and head, and a yellow and
brown barred and speckled chest, and all the keenness of eye one looks
for in his tribe.
[Sidenote: _SNAKES._]
Early as it is, here and there in the road is one of the little brown
snakes that abound in the valley; seduced from his hole by the warm
sun, he is enjoying himself in the dust, and only just has time to
glide hastily away as the horse-hoofs threaten his life. Their
harmlessness and use in waging war on beetles, worms, and frogs, ought
to save their lives; but they are snakes, and that suffices to cause
every passer-by to strike at them with his staff.
The face of the country is vivid green, the autumn-sown wheat nearly
knee-high, and the oats running the wheat a race in height and
thickness. The orchard-trees close to the farmhouse we are approaching
stand clothed from head to foot in flower; the pear-trees, whose
branches are not now curved and bent with fruit, tower as white
pyramids above the heads of the blushing apples.
Close by the orchard-fence the ewes and lambs feed, the little ones
leaping high and throwing themselves away with the mere joy of warm sun
and young life.
The farmer sees us coming, and scolds back the rough sheep-dog noisily
barking at the strangers as he comes to his gate to shake hands. "Won't
you hitch your horse and come in?" he says; "I want you to look at
these bees--I have got six swarms already." And under the garden-fence
stands a long, low-boarded roof, and under it a whole row of boxes and
barrels, of all ages and sizes, with a noisy multitude coming and
going. Straw hives are unknown, and any old tea-chest is used. Not much
refinement about bee-keeping in Oregon; but honey fetches from thirty
to fifty cents a pound.
We mount again, and, passing through a couple of loosely made and
carelessly hung gates, we enter the big pasture. Not very much grass in
it; it is wet, low-lying, undrained land. The wild-rose bushes are
scattered here, there, and everywhere in clumps, and the face of the
field is strewed with the dull, light-green, thick and hairy leaves of
a wild sunflower, whose bright-yellow flowers with a brown center, all
hanging as if too heavy for the stalk, have not yet matured. The cattle
are very fond of this plant, and do well on it. An enemy of theirs is
the lupin, here called the larkspur, one of the earliest of spring
plants. Its handsome, dark-blue flowers do not redeem it, for the
cattle are deceived by it, eat, and are seized with staggers, and will
sink down and die if not seen to and treated. One of our friends tells
us that he cures his larkspur-poisoned cattle with fat pork, lumps of
which he stuffs down their throats. This information we submit to an
unprejudiced public, but we do not guarantee that this remedy will
cure. It is generally two-year-old cattle which partake and
sicken--perhaps the calves have not enterprise enough, and the older
cattle too much sense.
The plant is not so very common, but it has to be watched for and
extirpated when found. Between the pasture and the wheat-fields stands
another snake-fence and a gate. Alas! by the gate, and to be crossed
before we reach it, is the Slough of Despond--a big, deep,
uncompromising pool of black, sticky mud. The horses eye it doubtfully,
and put down their noses to try if it smells better than it looks, and
then step gravely in, girth-high almost, till we open and force back
the heavy gate.
Skirting the wheat-field, between it and the creek, hardly seen for the
undergrowth of rose-bushes and hazel, with here and there a big
oak-tree, the road brings us out into a patch of garden-ground, filled
with vegetables for the town housekeepers. Just now there is little to
be seen but some rows of early peas and spring cabbage. Later on, the
long beds of onions, French beans, cauliflowers, and all the rest, with
the melons, squashes, or vegetable marrows, pumpkins, cucumbers, and
tomatoes (which were the glory of the gardener), showed the full
advantages of the irrigating ditches, fed by the higher spring, which
are led here, there, and everywhere through the patch. For, remember,
we had almost continuous fine weather, with hot sun and few showers,
from the middle of May till the middle of October.
[Sidenote: _THE CARDWELL HILL._]
But here is the main road again, which we left to turn across the
fields, and we are at the foot of the Cardwell Hill. The wood lies on
both sides of us, and we mount rapidly upward. The wild-strawberry
creeps everywhere along the ground, its white flower and yellow eye
hiding modestly under the leaves. The catkins on the hazel-bushes
dangle from each little bough. The purple iris grows thickly in the
frequent mossy spots, and the scarlet columbine peers over the heads of
the bunches of white flowers we knew not whether to call
lilies-of-the-valley or Solomon's seal, for they bear the features of
both. The purple crocuses have not yet all gone out of bloom, though
their April glory has departed, and the tall spear-grass gives elegance
all round to Dame Nature's bouquets.
We have ample time to take in all these homely beauties, for the road
is too thickly shaded by the wood for the sun to dry the mud, and our
horses painfully plod upward, with a noisy "suck, suck," as each foot
in turn is dragged from the sticky mass.
But the undergrowth is thinner as we mount; first oak-scrub and then
oak-trees growing here and there, with grass all round, take the place
of the copse, and the mountain air blows fresh in our faces as we near
the summit. Halting for a moment to let the horses regain their breath,
we turn and see the whole broad valley lying bright in sunshine far
below. So clear is the air that the firs on the Cascades, forty miles
away, are hardly blended into a mass of dark, greenish gray; and the
glorious snow-peaks shining away there twenty miles behind those firs,
look to be on speaking terms with the Coast Range on which we stand.
But we pursue our westward course along a narrow track following the
hill-side near the top, leaving the road to take its way down below, to
round the base of the hill which we strike across. This hill is bare of
trees, and is covered now with bright, young, green grass, soon to be
dried and shriveled into a dusty brown by the summer sun. We wind round
the heads of rocky clefts or canyons, down each of which hastens a
murmuring stream. There the oaks and alders grow tall, but we look over
their heads, so rapid is the descent to the vale below.
The mountains on the distant left of us are Mary's Peak and the Alsea
Mountain; the former with smooth white crown of snow above the dark fir
timber; and away to the right, among lower, wooded hills, we catch one
glimpse of the burned timber, the thick black stems standing out clear
on the horizon-line.
Passing down the hill and by the farmhouse at the foot, with its great
barn and blooming orchard, we strike the road once more, passing for a
mile or two between wheat-fields, with the Mary River on the left
closed from our sight by the screen of firs that follow it all the way
along; then by a bridge and by other farms, and between fir-woods of
thickly standing trees, and up and down hill, with here and there a
level valley in between, we strike the Mary River again for the last
time, and climb the Summit Hill.
We are twenty-two miles from our starting-point, and claim a meal and
rest. We are among old friends as we ride up to Crain's to dine, and
the noonday sun is hot enough for us to enjoy the cool breeze among the
young firs behind the house, as we stand to wash hands and face by the
bench on the side of the dairy built over the stream close by. The
horses know their way to the barn, to stand with slackened sinches, and
nuzzle into the sweet timothy-hay with which the racks are filled.
[Sidenote: _THE YAQUINA VALLEY._]
On our way once more, in half an hour we stand on the edge of the
water-shed, and look down far into the Yaquina Valley, lying deep
between rugged and broken hills below. As we dip below the crest, the
character of the vegetation changes at once.
We have left the thick woods behind. The last of the tall green firs
clothes the crest we have passed, and the black burned timber is dotted
along the hill-sides.
Last year's brake-fern clothes the hills in dull yellow and brown,
except where patches of thimble-berry and salmon-berry bushes have
usurped its place. The wild-strawberry has been almost entirely left
behind, and instead there is the blackberry-vine trailing everywhere
along the rough ground, and casting its purple-tinged tracery over the
fallen logs. There is plenty of grass among the fern, and the wild-pea
grows erect as yet, not having length enough to bend and creep. The
river Yaquina comes down from a wild, rough valley to the right, to be
crossed by a wooden bridge close to a farmhouse on rising ground. Two
of our recently arrived Englishmen have bought this place, and are well
satisfied with their position. About eight hundred acres of their own
land, of which quite three hundred are cultivable in grain, though not
nearly all now in crop, and really unlimited free range on the hills
all round for stock; some valley-land which produces everything it is
asked; a garden-patch where potatoes grew this year, one of which was
six pounds in weight; a comfortable house and substantial barn; a
trout-stream by their doors; a railroad in near prospect to bring them
within two hours of a market at either end; and, meanwhile, a demand at
home for all the oats and hay they can raise for sale--it would be
strange, indeed, I think, if they who had supposed they were coming
into a wilderness with everything to make, were not well pleased.
The only things they complain of are the scarcity of neighbors and bad
roads--both, we hope, in a fair way to be overcome. They look contented
enough, as they stand by their house-door to bid us good-day as we ride
by. The valley widens out and narrows again in turn. In each open space
stands a farmhouse, or else the site demands one.
As we get nearer to the coast, the river forces its way through quite a
narrow gorge, following round the point of a projecting fern-covered
slope, and under the shadow of the high hill on the northern side. The
great blechnum ferns, with fronds three or four feet long, are
interspersed with the thimble-berry bushes, and border the road.
Syringa and deutzia plants and two varieties of elder, which bear black
and red berries, but are now bright with abundant flowers, clothe the
steep bank overhanging the river, which here widens out into calm
pools, divided by ripples, and runs over rocks. And see, here is a
natural bridge; a huge fir has fallen right across, and the farmer has
leveled the ground up to the top of the trunk, some six feet high, and
has set up a slender rail on each side of his bridge, and over it he
drives his sheep into the less matted and tangled ground on the far
side.
[Sidenote: "_CHUCK-HOLES._"]
The road, cut into the steep hill-side, never gets the sunshine; the
mud clogs the horse's feet and fills the "chuck-holes"--traps for the
unwary driver. Be it known that oftentimes a great log comes shooting
down the hill in winter, and brings up in its downward course on the
ledge formed by the road. Notice is sent to the road supervisor by the
first passer-by, and this functionary, generally one of the better
class of farmers, who has charge of the road district, calls out his
neighbors to assist in the clearing of the road. He has legal power to
enforce his summons, but it is never disregarded, and the "crowd" fall
on with saws, axes, and levers. They soon cut a big "chunk" out of the
log, some ten feet long, wide enough to clear the center of the road,
and roll it unceremoniously away down the hill, or lodge it lengthwise
by the roadside. There they leave matters, deeming spade-and-shovel
work beneath them. Next winter's rain lodges and stands in the dint
made by the trunk when it fell, and in the depression left by the men
who rolled the middle of the log away. Never filled up, or any channel
cut to run the water off, a "chuck-hole" is formed, which each wagon
enlarges as it is driven round the edge to escape the center. Woe
betide the stranger who does not altogether avoid, or boldly
"straddle," the "chuck-hole" with his wheels! The side of the wagon
whose fore and hind wheels have sunk into the hole dips rapidly down,
and he is fortunate who escapes without an upset, and with only showers
of liquid mud covering horses, driver, and load, as the team struggles
to drag the wagon through. But, pressing through the gorge, we emerge
into a more open stretch. On the right of us rises a smooth, round
hill, fern-covered to the top; and on the opposite side, next the
river, planted on a pretty knoll just where the valley turns sharply to
the north, thereby getting a double view, is Mr. Trapp's farmhouse, our
resting-place for the night. We have made our forty-four miles in spite
of the muddy road and steep grades, and there is yet time before supper
to borrow our host's rod and slip down to the river for a salmon-trout.
Excellent fare and comfortable beds prepare us for the eighteen miles
we have yet before us on the morrow, and we get an early start. Two
miles below Trapp's is Eddy's grist-mill, with its rough mill-dam, made
on the model of a beaver-dam, and of the same sticks and stones, but
not so neatly; the ends of the sticks project over the mill-pool below,
and prove the death of numberless salmon, which strike madly against
them in their upward leaps, and fall back bruised and beaten into the
pool again.
An effort was made to pass a law, this last session of the Legislature,
compelling the construction of fish-passes through the mill-dams; but
it was too useful and simple a measure to provoke a party fight, and
therefore was quietly shelved. Better luck next time.
[Sidenote: _MINNOWS AND CRAWFISH._]
Presently we leave the Yaquina River, which, for over twenty miles, we
have followed down its course; for never a mile without taking in some
little brook, where the minnows are playing in busy schools over the
clean gravel, and the crawfish are edging along, and staggering back,
as if walking were an unknown art practiced for the first time. The
river has grown from the burn we first crossed to a tidal watercourse,
with a channel fifteen feet in depth, and, having left its youthful
vivacity behind, flows gravely on, bearing now a timber-raft, then a
wide-floored scow, and here the steam-launch carrying the mail. But we
climb the highest hill we have yet passed, where the aneroid shows us
eleven hundred feet above the sea-level, and from its narrow crest
catch our first sight of the bay, glittering between the fir-woods in
the morning sun.
We leave the copse-woods behind, and canter for miles along a gently
sloping, sandy road; the hills are thick in fern and thimble-berry
bush, with the polished leaves and waxy-white flowers of the sallal
frequently pushing through. We have got used by this time to the black,
burned trunks, and somehow they seem appropriate to the view. But the
sound of the Pacific waves beating on the rocky coast has been growing
louder, and as we get to the top of a long ascent the whole scene lies
before us.
That dim blue haze in the distance is the morning fog, which has
retreated from the coast and left its outlines clear.
On the right is the rounded massive cape, on the lowest ledge of which
stands Foulweather Lighthouse. The bare slopes and steep sea-face tell
of its basaltic formation, which gives perpendicular outlines to the
jutting rocks against which, some six miles off, the waves are dashing
heavily.
Between that distant cape and the Yaquina Lighthouse Point the
coast-line is invisible from the height on which we stand, but the
ceaseless roar tells of rocky headlands and pebble-strewed beach.
Below us lies the bay, a calm haven, with its narrow entrance right
before us, and away off, a mile at sea, a protecting line of reef, with
its whole course and its north and south ends distinctly marked by the
white breakers spouting up with each long swell of the Pacific waves.
Under the shelter of the lighthouse hill, on the northern side, stands
the little town of Newport, its twenty or thirty white houses and
boat-frequented beach giving the suggestion of human life and interest
to the scene.
Away across the entrance, the broad streak of blue water marking the
deep channel is veined with white, betraying the reef below--soon, we
trust, to be got rid of in part by the engineers whose scows and barges
are strewed along the south beach there in the sun.
[Illustration: Yaquina Bay, Newport, 1880.]
[Sidenote: _NEWPORT._]
On that south side a broad strip of cool, gray sand borders the harbor,
and there stand the ferry-house, and its flag-staff and boats.
Looking to the left, the fir-crowned and fern-covered hills slope down
to Ford's Point, jutting out into deep water, which flows up for miles
till the turn above the mill shuts in the view.
But we must not wait, if we mean to catch any flounders before the tide
turns, and so we hurry down to the beach and along the hard sand
bordering the bay under the broken cliffs, and are soon shaking hands
with the cheery landlord of the Sea-View Hotel, who has been watching
us from his veranda ever since we descended the hill from Diamond Point.
CHAPTER V.
Hay-harvest--Timothy-grass--Permanent pasture--Hay-making by express--
The mower and reaper--Hay-stacks as novelties--Wheat-harvest--Thrashing
--The "thrashing crowd"--"Headers" and "self-binders"--Twine-binders
and home-grown flax--Green food for cows--Indian corn, vetches--Wild-oats
in wheat--Tar-weed the new enemy--Cost of harvesting--By hired machines
--By purchased machines--Cost of wheat-growing in the Willamette Valley.
Neither the first nor the second year did hay-harvest begin with us
till after the first week in July. We did not shut the cattle off the
hay-fields till the end of February, so that there was a great growth
of grass to be made in four months and a half.
How different our hay-fields are from those in the old country! I
should dearly like to show to some of these farmers a good
old-fashioned Devonshire or Worcestershire field, with its thick, solid
undergrowth and waving heads. I should like them to see how much feed
there was after the crop was cut.
Here timothy-grass is everything to the farmer. Certainly, the
old-country man would open his eyes to see a crop waist-high, the heavy
heads four to seven inches long, and giving two tons to the acre. And
he would revel in laying aside for good and all that anxiety as to
weather which has burdened his life ever since he took scythe and
pitchfork in hand. We expect nothing else but dewy nights and brilliant
sunshine, so that the habit is to cut one day, pile the grass into huge
cocks the same day, and carry it to the barn the next. Hay-stacks are
unknown; the whole crop is stored away in the barn; and you may see
sixty, eighty, or a hundred tons under the one great roof, and no fear
of heating or burning before the farmer's eyes.
[Sidenote: _THE MOWER AND REAPER._]
The glory of the scythe has departed. Every little farmer has his
mower, or mower and reaper combined; or else, if he can not afford to
pay two hundred dollars or thereabout for his machine, he hires one
from his more fortunate neighbor, and pays him "six bits"--that is,
seventy-five cents--per acre for cutting his crop. Wood's, McCormick's,
or the Buckeye, are the favorites here.
Our own machine, with one pair of stout horses, cuts from nine to
twelve acres a day, according to the thickness of the crop and the
level or hilly nature of the ground. It looks easy--just riding up and
down the field all day--but try it, and you will find you have to give
close attention all the time, to be ready to lift your knives over a
lumpy bit of ground or round a stump, and to cut your turns and corners
clean; and there are no springs to your seat, and a mower is not the
easiest carriage in the world.
Nor is it light work to follow the horse hay-rake all day, lifting the
teeth at every swath. Pitching hay is about the same work all the world
over, I think; but at home one does not expect to make acquaintance
with quite so many snakes, which come slipping down and twisting and
writhing about as the hay is pitched into the wagon. It is true they
are harmless, but I don't like them, all the same.
We put up a big hay-stack each year, in spite of the most dismal
prophecies from our neighbors that the rain would mold the hay, that it
would not be fit to use, and that even a "town-cow" would despise it
(and they will eat anything from deal boards to sulphur-matches, I
declare). But the event justified us, and the whole stack of 1879 was
duly eaten to the last mouthful.
Wheat and oats follow close on the heels of the hay. We finished our
stack on the 17th of July, and began cutting wheat on the 27th.
There is one harvest, and only one, on record in Oregon, where rain
fell on the cut grain and injured it. The rule is to feel absolutely
secure of cutting your grain, thrashing it in the field as soon as cut,
and carrying it from the thrashing-machine straight to the warehouse.
There is lively competition to get the thrasher as soon as the grain is
cut. The "thrashing crowd," of some seven or eight hands, which
accompany the thrasher, have a busy time. They get good wages--from the
$2.50 for the experienced "feeder" of the machine, to the $1.50 for the
man who drives and loads the wagon, or pitches the sheaves. They travel
from farm to farm, setting up the thrasher in a central spot, and
"hauling" the sheaves to it. The quantity passed through the machine in
one long day varies from one thousand to fifteen hundred bushels with
horse-power; driven by steam, the quantity will run up to upward of two
thousand bushels. These quantities seem very large by the side of those
yielded by English machines, but they are too well authenticated to be
open to doubt.
[Sidenote: "_HEADERS" AND "SELF-BINDERS._"]
A great wheat-field of a hundred acres, with headers and thrasher going
at once, is a lively scene. The "header" is a huge construction ten
feet wide. Revolving frames in front bend the wheat to the knives,
where it is cut and delivered in an endless stream into a great
header-wagon, driven alongside the cutting-machine. Six horses propel
the header in front of them, and move calmly along unterrified by the
revolving frames and vibrating knives. As soon as the header-wagon is
filled, it is driven off to the thrasher, whirring away in the center
of the field, and an empty one takes its place.
Six horses to the header, two each to three header-wagons, eight to the
horse-power on the thrasher, and one to the straw-rake, are all going
at once. One man driving the header, one each to the three wagons, two
feeding and tending the thrasher, one fitting and tying up the
wheat-bags as the cleaned and finished grain comes pouring from the
machine, and one hand at the straw-rake, are all busily at work. Very
speedily the field is cleared, and the just now waving grain lies piled
in a stack of wheat-bags in the center, waiting the departure of the
"thrashing crowd," to be hauled by the farmer to the warehouse.
A little of the straw is taken to the farmhouse, for use as litter in
stable and pig-sty; the rest is set fire to as soon as the wheat is
gone, and a great, unsightly, black patch is the last record in the
field of the year's crop.
The worst features of the "header" are that the wheat has to be much
riper than for the reaper or self-binder, and consequently more is
strewed about the field and lost; the machine cuts the wheat higher up
also, and consequently leaves more weeds to ripen and leave their seed.
Its advantage is the greater breadth of its cut and more rapid rate of
work. In more general use is the reaper or self-binder.
Several of our farmers' wives and daughters can take their turns on
these machines, and give no despicable help to the hardly-worked men.
This year it is expected that twine will be substituted for wire, thus
removing one great objection. A twine-binder was exhibited at the State
Fair at Salem, in full operation, and worked well. Besides getting rid
of the damage and danger of the wire getting into the thrashing-machines,
an additional advantage will be the fostering the growth of flax in the
State, and its working up into the harvest-twine. Be it known that
these counties of the Willamette Valley produce the finest and best of
flax, samples of which secured the highest premium at the Centennial
Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876.
The culture of flax and its manufacture afford, as far as I can judge,
one of the very best of the various openings at present attracting both
labor and capital to the State. As a mere experiment I had twenty-two
acres of flax sown on the 17th of June, on some land about three miles
from Corvallis which unexpectedly came under my control. In seven weeks
from that day I gathered a handful, indiscriminately, from an average
spot in the field; the fiber of this was seventeen inches long.
The flax that was grown in Linn County, ten miles from here, and used
in the twine-factory there, produced fiber from two feet and a half to
three feet in length. In January last we saw it hackled, and the
workman, a northern Irishman of long experience, told us, as he gave
the hank he held in his hand a dexterous and affectionate twist, that
he had never handled better in ould Ireland.
I should dearly like to see linen-works established here; not only are
linen goods unreasonably dear on the Pacific coast, but it goes against
the grain to see a splendid raw material produced and not turned to the
best account. Flax is not found here to be an exhausting crop. The
farmers who have grown it say, on the contrary, that their best
wheat-crop has followed flax; while to neither one crop nor the other
is any fertilizing agent used.
[Sidenote: _GREEN FOOD FOR COWS._]
One of the great difficulties the farmer finds here is to keep green
food going for his cows during the harvest months. One successful
expedient is to grow a patch of Indian corn or maize. Well cultivated,
and the ground kept stirred and free from weeds, the absence of rain
does not prevent its growth, and its succulent green leaves are eagerly
munched at milking-time by the sweet-breathed cows.
Another crop just introduced here is the vetch, better known as tares,
for the same purpose. Two friends of mine in Marion County, forty miles
north of this place, have found the experiment a very successful one;
the appearance of the two or three acres I put in this last winter goes
far to justify them. Sown in December, about two bushels to the acre,
the growth is very vigorous and the produce heavy.
Continuous cropping in wheat for many years has fostered the growth of
the wild-oats, now a great disfigurement and drawback to the wheat-crop
in this valley. Traveling north to Portland by train, this last
harvest, it was sometimes even hard to say whether wheat or wild-oats
were intended to be grown. Nothing but summer fallowing, thoroughly
applied and regularly followed, can remedy this. I have known a farmer
to send his wheat to the mill, and get back half the quantity in
wild-oats.
To the timothy-hay fields a noxious plant called "tar-weed" is the
great enemy on all damp or low-lying spots. The plant was new to us,
but, once seen, is never forgotten. Fortunately, it matures later than
the timothy, and so does not get its seeds transferred; but it is
almost disgusting to see the skins and noses of the horses and cattle
turned into the field when the hay is off, coated with a glutinous,
viscid gum, to which every speck of dust, every flying seed of weeds,
sticks all too tightly. Plowing up the field, and summer fallowing, are
the only remedies when the tar-weed gets too bad to endure. Tar-weed is
an annual which grows some eight or ten inches high, one stalk from
each seed; short, narrow, hairy leaves of a dingy green and a tiny
colorless flower offer no compensation in beauty for the annoyance it
occasions as you pass through the field, and find boots and trousers
coated with the sticky gum. It is a relief to know that it affects the
valley only, and does not mount even the lower hills of the Cascade and
Coast Ranges.
Before leaving the subject of harvesting I ought to give the cost.
It is not now the question of the capitalist who can afford to pay from
$750 to $1,200 for his thrashing-machine in addition to $320 for his
self-binding harvester to cut his grain; but of the struggling farmer,
who has to make both ends meet by economy and fore-thought.
We will suppose that he has seventy acres of wheat to harvest, and that
it will produce twenty bushels to the acre, a moderate suggestion.
[Sidenote: _COST OF HARVESTING._]
The cutting and binding in sheaves of the crop by a neighbor's
self-binder will cost him $1.25 per acre, the contractor supplying the
wire. The machine will cut and bind nearly ten acres a day; the cost,
therefore, for the seventy acres will be $87.50, or say $90, to be
safe.
The thrashing will cost him six cents a bushel for his wheat, or $84
for his fourteen hundred bushels; and the farmer has to supply food for
the men and horses whose services he hires. This expense will naturally
vary according to the liberality and good management of the farmer and
his wife. It falls heavily on the hostess to provide for seven or eight
hungry men, in addition to her own family; but plentiful food, well
cooked, is no bad investment, for it reacts strongly on both the
quantity and the quality of the work done.
A fair average cost is fifty cents a day for each man, and the same for
each horse. The expense of keep of the cutting and binding, man and
three-horse team for seven days, will, therefore, be $15. On a similar
basis the keep of the "thrashing crowd" and twelve horses, for a day
and a half and something over, will cost just $16.
The total outlay, therefore, on harvesting a wheat-crop of twenty
bushels per acre on seventy acres, _when all services and all machines
have to be hired_, will be $205. Or an average of just fourteen and
two-thirds cents per bushel.
A glance will show what a good investment the self-binding harvester
is, if only well cared for when harvest is over. The farmer who has a
machine of his own saves more than six cents a bushel, and, on a crop
of fourteen hundred bushels only, would pay for the machine in less
than four years.
Let us see, then, what wheat-growing in the Willamette Valley costs--a
matter of deep interest to the intending emigrant, and to farmers in
other parts of the world who have to compete with Oregon-grown wheat.
We will take the same seventy acres, as a reasonable extent for a small
valley farm. Once plowing, at the rate of two acres a day with a
three-horse team, or one and a half acre for a two-horse team--that is
thirty-five days' labor for man and three horses. Twice harrowing, at
the rate of fourteen acres a day--that is ten days' labor for a man and
two horses. Sowing, at the rate of twenty-one acres a day, or three and
a third days' labor for a man and four horses. The seed will cost $98,
at the rate of two bushels per acre and seventy cents a bushel.
The cost, therefore, of growing the crop will be $98 in money, and the
labor of one man for forty-eight days and a third, and of a pair of
horses for sixty-nine and a quarter days.
Putting the farmer's labor into money at the rate of a dollar a day,
and that of his team also at the rate of half a dollar a day for each
horse (and these are here the regular rates of wages), the result will
be $117.50; add the $98 for the seed, and you arrive at a total of
$215.50; or, on seventy acres, an average of three dollars and eight
cents an acre; or, on fourteen hundred bushels, of fifteen and
four-tenths cents per bushel. To this add the fourteen cents and
two-thirds for harvesting and thrashing, and add twelve days' labor for
man and one team of horses hauling the grain to the warehouse: this
represents an additional cost of one cent and seven tenths per bushel,
and the _total cost then is thirty-one cents and seven tenths per
bushel_.
[Sidenote: _COST OF WHEAT-GROWING._]
Remember that this wheat is grown on the farmer's own freehold, which
may have cost him twenty or twenty-five dollars per acre. Do not forget
also a taxation of about fifteen thousandths a year on the total value
of the farmer's estate, as arranged between him and the assessor--land,
stock, implements, and everything else he has beyond about three
hundred dollars' worth of excepted articles. But add no rent or tithe,
and recollect that in this calculation the farmer's own labor and that
of his team are charged at market price against the crop.
The charge for warehousing the wheat till it is sold is four cents a
bushel; and the wheat-sacks, holding two bushels each, will cost from
ten to twelve cents each.
Add, therefore, still nine and a half cents a bushel for subsequent
charges, and the farmer who kept accounts would find his wheat, in the
warehouse and ready for market, represented to him an outlay of
forty-one cents and a quarter a bushel.
If he sells at eighty-five cents a bushel, that gives him a profit of
$8.75 per acre on the portion of his farm in wheat.
CHAPTER VI.
The farmer's sports and pastimes--Deer-hunting tales--A roadside yarn--
Still-hunting--Hunting with hounds--An early morning's sport--Elk--The
pursuit--The kill--Camp on Beaver Creek--Flounder-spearing by torchlight
--Flounder-fishing by day--In the bay--Rock oysters--The evening view
--The general store--Skins--Sea-otters--Their habits--The sea-otter
hunters--Common otter--The mink and his prey.
The Oregon farmer has one great advantage over his Eastern or European
brother. Starting from the first of January, he has until July comes a
good many days wherein he can amuse himself without the detestable
feeling that he is wasting his time and robbing his family. The ground
may be either too hard or too soft for plowing; or he may have sown a
large proportion in the autumn and early winter, and so have little
ground to prepare and sow in spring; and he has little, if any,
stock-feeding to do as yet.
A good supply of hay is the only addition to the pasture-feed that he
need provide; so long, that is, as he is content to work his farm in
Oregon fashion.
Many a one is within reach of the hills where range the deer, and
shares in the feeling strongly expressed to me the other day, "I would
rather work all day for one shot at a deer, than shoot fifty wild-ducks
in the swamps."
As I was riding out to the hills not long since, I met an old friend of
mine returning from a week's hunt in the regions at the back of Mary's
Peak.
[Sidenote: _A ROADSIDE YARN._]
His long-bodied farm-wagon held some cooking-utensils, the remains of
his store of flour and bacon and coffee, his blankets, his rifle, and
the carcasses of his deer. With him were two noble hounds, Nero and
Queen--powerful, upstanding dogs; stag-hounds with a dash of bloodhound
in them; black and tan, with a fleck of white here and there. "Had a
good time, John?" we asked, as we stopped at the top of a long hill for
a chat. "Well, pretty good--ran four deer and killed three; got my
boots full of snow, and bring home a bad cold," he answered. "Where did
you camp?" "Away up above Stillson's, there"--pointing to the
mountain-side just where the heavy fir-timber grew scattering and thin,
and the clean sweep of the sloping crest came down to meet the wood.
"We was there inside of a week, hunting all the time." "See any bear?"
"Just lots of sign, but I guess my dogs haven't lost any bear; the old
dog got too close to one a bit ago, and came home with a bloody head
and a cut on his shoulder a foot long." "Find many deer?" "Had two on
foot at once one day: killed one, and hit the other, but he jumped a
log just as I shot, and I guess I only barked him; I ran after him to
try for another shot before he got clear off down the canyon, but I
tumbled over a log myself in the snow, and just got wet through, and my
boots all filled with it." "Pretty rough up there, isn't it?" "Well, it
wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fallen timber; but you can't
get through them woods fast when you have to run round the end of one
big log one minute and then duck under another, and then scramble on to
the next for dear life, and half the time get only just in time to see
the last of the deer as he gets into the thick brush." "Better come out
with us after the ducks, John." "Blamed if I do!" came out with an
unction and energy that startled us. "Can't understand what you fellers
can see in that duck-hunting." And, with a cheery good-by, the old boy
spoke to his horses, and off they went down the hill, the brake hard
held, and the wagon pushing the team before it on the rough corduroy
road.
Still-hunting is the more sportsmanlike way; but the deadlier fashion
is this hunting with two or three hounds: the slower they run, the more
chance for the guns.
One day last summer, returning from the bay, we stopped for the night
at a farm by the roadside, among the burned timber. The fern had not
grown up yet, but the hillsides were green and thick with salmon-berry
and thimble-berry growth.
Two or three hounds--not of the very purest breed, but still
hounds--were lounging about the door, and greeted us with a noisy
welcome as we dismounted.
The sons of the house were telling, round the fire before we went to
bed, of the hundred and thirty deer they had already killed this
season. They urged us to have a hunt in the morning, promising to get
all done, so that we might be on the journey again by nine instead of
seven.
Breakfast was over by a quarter to six, and we started. Four in the
party--two farmers' sons and two travelers--and three hounds. The
huntsman carried a Henry rifle of the old model; his younger brother a
rifle of the old school--long, brown, heavy-barreled, throwing a small,
round bullet. Round the huntsman's neck hung an uncouth cow's horn, to
recall the hounds if they strayed too far away.
[Sidenote: _HUNTING WITH HOUNDS._]
The sun was just driving off the early mist as we tramped along the
road by the side of the river, toward the spot where they intended
throwing off. But before we reached the place a quick little hound
threw up her head, and, with a short, sharp cry, dashed into the brush
between us and the river; the other hounds followed, and we heard the
plunge and splash as the deer, so suddenly roused from his lair, took
to his heels.
The hounds took up in full cry along the opposite canyon, which led high
up the hill-side, and the huntsman followed, his jacket changing color
at once as he pushed through the dew-laden brush.
Under the guidance of the younger brother, we crossed the river also,
and, following the farther bank, soon came to an open, grassy spot,
from the upper side of which a view was got of the course of the river
as it wound round the lower side in a graceful sweep. The trees, willow
and alder, were thick on the bank, but here and there we caught more
than a glimpse of the brown water as it hurried along.
One of us being posted here, our guide took the other still higher up
the stream.
Sitting down under the lee of a big old log, its blackness hidden under
the trailing brambles and bright ferns, we waited and watched.
The cry of the hounds came faint on the air from the hill-side above
us, hounds and quarry alike invisible, and, as the sides of the canyon
caught the sounds, echo returned them to us from all points in
turn--fainter and still fainter, until we thought the chase had gone
clear over the mountain into the distant valley beyond; and we sat
watching the two little chipmunks, grown hardy by our stillness, which
were chasing each other in and out among the brambles, then stopping to
watch us with their bright-black, beady eyes.
No sounds at all, and then a far-off music, just audible and no more.
But it comes nearer, and we see our guide creeping toward us, rifle in
hand, his face white with excitement and suspense. He can not resist
the temptation of passing us to get command of the lower reach of the
stream, and we have sympathy with his nineteen years, and take no
notice. Presently a distant splash in the river, and then a scrambling
and splashing along the water's edge, and we catch a glimpse of a
bright-yellow body flitting rapidly between the trees. The young
hunter's rifle cracks, but the deer only gains in speed and dashes by.
There is a clear space of ten or fifteen yards between the tree-trunks
on our right, and, as the deer rushes past, we get a quick sight,
almost like a rabbit crossing a ride in cover at home, and the
Winchester rings out. Whether by luck or wit we will not say, but the
splash ceases suddenly, and, running to the bank, there lies the deer,
shot through the neck close to the head, drawing his last long breath.
He was soon dragged out on to the grassy bank, and a feeling of pity
was uppermost as we admired his graceful limbs, neat hoofs, and shapely
head. In about ten minutes' time came the hounds, their eager cry
ceasing as they caught sight of their quarry, lying motionless before
them. The last hunters' rites were speedily paid, and we went a mile
higher up the stream, to where a brook joined it, flowing quickly down
from the southern hill.
The hounds were again thrown into the brush, and before long were once
more in full cry. This time the shot fell to the young huntsman's
share, and we saw nothing of the chase till, hearing his rifle, and
noticing the ceasing of the voices of the hounds, we pushed our way to
the spot, to find the obsequies of a second deer already in progress.
Leaving one deer on a log by the roadside, with a note attached to it,
asking the stage-driver to pick it up and bring it for us into
Corvallis, when he passed, in a couple of hours' time, we retraced our
steps, mounted our horses, and were on our road, according to promise,
by very soon after nine o'clock.
[Sidenote: _STILL-HUNTING._]
Still-hunting is a more arduous business. The hunter has the work to do
of finding the deer; his rifle must slay it; if he wounds it, he must
follow it on foot; the only help he can get is that of one steady old
dog, which must never stray from his side.
Starting from his camp in the early dawn, he mounts the hill-side,
carefully examining each likely spot of brush as he passes it, taking
special note of each sheltered patch of fern. Very carefully he climbs
the logs, avoiding every dead branch that may crackle under his weight,
and parting the brush before he pushes through. When he reaches the
crest, he follows it along, scrutinizing every canyon closely, for his
prey lies very wisely hidden. At last, he sees a gentle movement in the
brush, and the deer rises from his lair, stretches his neck, arches his
back, and snuffs round at each point of the compass to try if there be
danger in the air. The hunter sees his chance, judges his distance as
cleverly as he can, remembering that in this clear mountain air he is
almost sure to underestimate the range; the shot rings out, and the
deer springs high into the air, to fall crashing down the steep
canyon-side.
The common deer of Western Oregon is the black-tailed _Cervus
Columbianus_. In the early spring many of them leave the mountains
and traverse the valley-land to the closely timbered sloughs and brush
bordering the Willamette River. But, as the valley has been more
closely cultivated and the farms spread in a nearly unbroken line, the
deer have but a poor chance. Some settler is almost sure to get a
glimpse of the visitor as he tops the snake-fence into the oat-field
for his morning feed, and the rifle, or worse, the long muzzle-loading
shot-gun which carries five buckshot at a charge, hangs by or over the
wide fireplace. If not killed outright, the poor beast carries with him
a lingering and dangerous wound. But, away in the hills, I do not hear
that the number is appreciably diminished; many of the hunters get a
deer almost every time they go out. So wasteful are they that they
carry off only the hind quarters, which they call the hams, and the
hide, leaving the fore quarters and head to taint the air.
The white-tailed deer (_Cervus leucurus_) is now very rare. He
frequents the more open spots; he chooses the bare slopes at the top of
Mary's Peak and the Bald Mountain; he is not so shy as his black-tailed
brother, and so falls an easier victim to the rifle. He abounds in the
Cascade Range on the eastern side of the Willamette Valley, where he is
found in the same haunts as the larger mule-deer. The noblest deer we
have in Oregon is the wapiti (_Cervus Canadensis_), invariably known in
this country as elk.